Portable and mobile devices supporting video and audio are well known and include webpads, tablet PCs, PDAs, and iPods.
Published US Patent Application 2003/0095791 of Barton et al. describes a communication system and a family of methods for remote access to personal television service. Within the system of Barton et al., a remote personal TV service center provides centralized program guide information. A user may access the personal TV service center through a digital video recorder that is connected to the personal TV service center via telephone modem or a network server. The user may access the personal TV service center through a remote computer terminal or a personal digital assistant that is connected to a computer network. The user selects program events and programs the digital video recorder by using a graphical user interface installed in the front panel of the digital video recorder in case of local programming, or using a similar GUI which is incorporated into the Web pages presented to remote users by a Web server in case of remote programming. The media stream stored in one digital video recorder may be transferred to another digital video recorder. For data security protection during data transfer, all communication are authenticated and encrypted.
An article published on the World Wide Web by Dan Knight, on 10 Oct. 2002, available at www.lowendmac.com/musings/02/1010.html, and a later article by Danny Ricci, dated 30 Dec. 2002, available at www.lowendmac.com/musings/02/1230.html describe how Apple Computer Inc. can design a product utilizing Apple's OS X to power a personal video recorder which is completely integrated with other commercially available Apple Computer products, such as iSync, iPhoto, iMovie, and iPod.
An article on the World Wide Web available at www.beststuff.com/article.php3?story_id-6106, dated January 8 (year not indicated) describes an as yet unreleased product enabling TiVo subscribers with Home Media Option to be able to move their favorite programs stored on a TiVo PVR to a laptop for viewing on the road, or to any PC. For those who have a PC equipped with a DVD burner, programs can then be burned to DVD.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,637,029 to Maissel et al. describes a subscriber unit for use in a television system including a television network and transmitting apparatus for transmitting program schedule information, the subscriber unit including a receiving unit for receiving the program schedule information, a profile storage unit for storing at least one viewer preference profile of at least one television viewer, an intelligent agent for customizing the program schedule information based, at least in part, on the viewer preference profile, to produce a program guide including customized program schedule information, and display apparatus for displaying the program guide. The disclosure of U.S. Pat. No. 6,637,029 is hereby incorporated herein by reference.
Published PCT Patent Application WO 00/01149 of NDS Ltd., and corresponding U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/515,118, describe a digital recording method comprising: broadcasting a television program associated with a broadcaster set of parameters enabling access to a first set of predetermined portions of the program; operating an agent for determining whether to record the program and for associating with the program, upon recording of the program, an agent set of parameters enabling access to a second set of predetermined portions of the program; storing the program together with the broadcaster set of parameters and the agent set of parameters to generate an addressable program; displaying the at least a portion of the addressable program to a user; receiving from the user a user set of parameters enabling access to a third set of predetermined portions of the addressable program; editing the addressable program to include the user set of parameters enabling access to the third set of predetermined portions of the addressable program thereby generating an edited addressable program; and storing the edited addressable program. The disclosures of WO 00/01149 and corresponding U.S. application Ser. No. 09/515,118, are hereby incorporated herein by reference.
The NDS Guide to Personal TV, copyright 2003 by NDS Limited, One London Road, Staines, Middlesex, United Kingdom, describes personal TV, Personal Video Recorders (PVRs), revenue generating opportunities created by PVRs and personal TV, as well as targeted advertisements.
The disclosures of all references mentioned above and throughout the present specification, as well as the disclosures of all references mentioned in those references, are hereby incorporated herein by reference.